Ridiculously overdramatic and unexplainable situations. That is how Bubbly Berry often found himself. How it happened once was a lucky circumstance. How it happened almost every other day was purely a new form of circumstance only the over-the-top pink stallion could achieve. It had gotten to the point where his five friends took rostered turns in helping Bubble out of these situations. Today, he managed to stick himself to one of Applejack’s trees, completely encased in apple-flavored chewing gum. The only thing not covered in the sticky gum was his head, swinging from side to side and humming a tune. He looked perfectly content on spending the afternoon encased in confectionary.
That was until a voice interrupted his improvised melody. “Berry? What on earth happened to you, darling?” The voice came from a white unicorn with a puzzled look on his face. “And more importantly, why are you covered in gum?”
“Hey Lucy!” the pink stallion happily replied. “Long story short, I was about to head back to work when I noticed that Grandpa Smith had just made some apple-flavored gum. He told me not to touch it until this afternoon, but it was just too tempting not to, so I maybe took several dozen and they were so tasty! But then I started making bubbles and you can probably guess what happened.”
The unicorn sighed as his horn lit up. “So how long have you been stuck here?”
Berry looked around the sky, spying the sun and the shadows around him. “I would probably say… five hours?”
“Five hours?! Well, let’s get you down then. Whose turn is it anyway?” Elusive asked with a tilted head.
“Dusky’s! It would have been Blitzy, but he took over for Dusk two weeks in a row because he was in Canterlot with Solaris, and Blitz said he wouldn’t cover any more of Dusky’s shifts, but he’s in Canterlot again. I saw him leave this morning to go visit Solaris again, but that means that someone else will have to take over to help me out of this tree. By the way, how ADORABLE are Dusky and Solaris, am I right?” Bubble managed to blast out in one breath.
“Alright, well, maybe Applejack will have an idea on how to get you out. I’m going to go find him. I was just going to go see him anyhow.” Elusive replied.
“C’mon Dusk, we miss you.” Elusive mumbled under his breath before going off to find Applejack.
_*_
At this point, Prince Dusk Shine had already lost count on how many happy sighs he’d given on his way home. The surprise date from Solaris was simple, but fantastic all the same. This time it was over a new exhibition at an art gallery that had just opened up, and the Sun Prince wanted him to be there with him. Of course, they did get rather distracted afterward. Well… by “distracted,” Dusk meant that they had gone on long flights, stopped for lunch while giving the owner of the said establishment a heart attack, and ending with Solaris giving his “consort” a very long goodbye kiss. But now, Dusk was happy to just be back home.
The sun was nearly setting above the horizon by the time Dusk had returned to his crystal tree home in the center of town. He noticed that the front door was cracked open. Curious, he peeked his head inside. “Spines! Are you in?” No reply. “Hello? Anypony here?”
“In the throne room!” Rainbow Blitz cried out, his voice bouncing off the shiny crystal walls. Dusk walked in and headed towards the main room of the castle where he found all five of his pony friends, plus a baby dragoness, sitting in their thrones.
“Hey guys,” the lilac alicorn greeted as he closed the door behind him. “What’s going on?”
“Partner,” Applejack spoke up while adjusting his hat. “Take a seat, we all have somethin’ ta talk about.”
Confused, Dusk took his usual place at the round table. Now sitting down, he looked around at his friends, noting that Elusive and Butterscotch looked worried and compassionate, Blitz and Applejack looked annoyed, and Bubble Berry just wore his signature grin. Spines sat in her chair horizontally, not really paying attention.
“Alright, what’s this all about?” Dusk asked, curious about their odd blend of emotions.
“We’re ticked off that you keep going off with Solaris all the time!” Blitz replied bitterly, making a poor effort to not raise his voice. “You’ve missed your ‘get-Bubble-Berry-out-of-his-mental-situations’ shift for the third week in a row! I mean, did you know that Berry was stuck to a tree with bubble gum for five hours? Not to mention that we hardly even see you anymore. The map has gone off twice and you weren’t even here!”
“Now settle down Blitz, dear. We must do this… diplomatically.” Elusive looked back at Blitz provoking a low growl from him.
“Now Dusk, we are happy for you in every sense of the word for finding your special somepony,” Elusive curtly explained. “In truth, however, it is taking time away from your friends. A lot of times, in fact, I am almost certain that you have a permanent room in Canterlot Castle.”
“Yeah, in Solaris’ bed!” Bubble Berry couldn’t resist, giggling and causing a blush to appear on Dusk’s cheeks.
Dusk glared daggers at Berry. “First of all, we haven’t done anything that… intimate yet.”
Blitz softly groaned before passing some bits to Applejack underneath the table. “Just bone already, why don’t you…” he mumbled out of Dusk’s earshot. Applejack’s smirk and Blitz’s scowl spoke volumes.
“Secondly,” he continued, “believe it or not, I understand where you all are coming from. At the same time, however, you guys gotta realize that this is the first serious relationship I’ve ever had. Just because I’m spending time with Solaris doesn’t mean that I’m forgetting about you guys, too.”
“That’s not the point we’re making,” Butterscotch softly spoke up. “It’s not like we have anything against your relationship -- in fact, we’re happy for you -- but when you’re not here for nearly days on end to the point where we’re not sure when you’re coming back… then we might have a little problem.”
“Ah have ta agree with Scotch on this,” Applejack nodded. “It’s not yer relationship that’s makin’ us all worried. It’s the fact that the very guy that makes checklists an’ schedules on everythin’ suddenly finds himself spending a little too much time with his coltfriend rather than his friends.”
“Alright, alright,” Dusk interrupted, clearly annoyed at his friends for ganging up on him. “Well, what do you expect me to say to him? ‘Hey Solaris, my friends miss me, do you think we can make our date tonight because I’m busy pulling a pink stallion out of a tree coated in bubble gum?’”
It was Bubble Bery that spoke up this time. “Oooo, oooo, oooo! I know, I know! Our problem is that Dusky needs to go AAAAAAAAALL the way to Canterlot to be able to see his cutesy-wootsy coltfriend, right?” Everypony nodded. “Weeeeeeell, why don’t we get a big rope, tie it to Ponyville and wrap it around Canterlot, then pull so hard that Ponyville moves right next to Canterlot! Then we won’t have to worry!” A small squeak came out of Bubble Berry as his smile widened to borderline-exorcism levels.
Applejack leaned over to Rainbow. “Remind me again why he’s not shacked up in the wacko basket?”
Everypony around the table smiled and nodded, wondering how much coffee the Cakes had allowed him this morning. Suddenly, Bubble jumped atop the table and shrieked out in joy. “Oh! We’re gonna need a HUGE rope!” With that, all that was left in the place of Bubble Berry was confetti and glitter slowly falling to the ground. All Rainbow Blitz could see was a pink blur and a gust of wind that could probably even beat his wind speed. Before anypony knew it, Berry had left the building.
“Or…” Spines finally spoke up as she moved to sit upright in her chair. “Why not just figure out a workable schedule, Dusk? I mean, the guys are in the right here.”
“What?”
“It only seems fair to take turns whenever Berry is doing Solaris-knows-what and to try and bring him back to reality. You’ve been missing your turn for three weeks in a row now, so why not simply reschedule?”
Dusk frowned. “Spines, do you think I haven’t thought of that already? Of course, I tried that a few weeks ago, but it’s not as simple as you’re making it sound. Solaris does have things he needs to take care of too, only he doesn’t know when he’s gonna be free. He made it very clear that he does want to spend as much time as possible with me when he has his free days. Unfortunately, those free days come at complete random, so who knows if he’ll be free tomorrow or several days from now. If I could somehow look into the future every couple of months or so, it would be of some help, but I’m sorry to say that I don’t exactly have that ability.”
“Says the pony who once time traveled a whole day to warn himself about the impending doom that was about to happen,” Rainbow deadpanned.
“Not talking about that!” Dusk quickly added, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
“Well that has to be some way to solve this where you get to spend time with Solaris, and we still get time with our friends,” Elusive replied.
Butterscotch rested his chin on his hoof in deep thought, analyzing the situation that had been presented. On one hoof, they needed Dusk to be around because of Bubble Berry and to take turns with him. However, on the other hoof, Dusk Shine’s coltfriend has an unpredictable schedule that was as spontaneous as Eris popping out of his floorboards for a sleepover. Not only that, but given the time the Prince was putting into seeing Solaris, he clearly liked him enough that he didn’t want to give up on seeing him. “Maybe--”
Unfortunately, whatever suggestion the timid pegasus was about to give was suddenly interrupted by Berry’s cry of “FOUND IT!!!” which made Butterscotch jump to the ceiling, hooking his forelegs around the tree-root chandelier like a frightened cat.
The other ponies in the room quickly snapped their heads around to the door to see Berry struggling to pull a very long and very thick rope. Dusk blinked a few times. “Bubble, where did you get that?”
“Don’t you know?” he asked as he dragged the enormous rope into the room. “I have rope stashed all over Ponyville in case of rope emergencies.”
Rainbow leaned over to Applejack. “I swear, that pony has catacombs under here.” The farmpony chuckled in response.
“Somepony help me tie this around the castle! We are moving to Canterlot!” Bubble Berry shouted.
“Berry, dearest, we aren’t going to move to Canterlot. Come and help us with some ideas.” Elusive replied curtly.
Butterscotch managed to unlatch himself from the ceiling and floated back into his seat. He lowered his head and raised his hoof a little to get their attention. “Maybe--”
“Of course it will have to cater to everypony: Dusk, us, and Solaris. But I have no idea how we can do this,” Elusive interrupted, not noticing the timid stallion.
“Well maybe--”
“Well, why don’t we hurry up!” Blitz started, “I have to get my daily flight in befo--”
Butterscotch couldn’t take it anymore. He jumped up onto the table while glaring angrily at Blitz. “Maybe--!” He hissed loudly, earning everypony’s attention, “we could simply just--”
“GUYS!!!” The whole room was silenced by Dusk’s roar. Everypony turned to him, his hooves over his eyes and breathing deeply. “This is not solving anything! Berry, as much as I appreciate the idea, it simply won’t work. And to be honest, I don’t even know what to do myself. I don’t know how to solve this, I don’t know how to balance our time with Solaris, and I don’t know how to work around his schedule so that it doesn’t interfere with hanging out with you guys! I don’t…” Pausing, he took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, I really am. I’m tired, it’s been a long day, and… I don’t know what to do.” He looked up at his friends, eyes heavy, and rose from his throne. “I really need to go to bed. Maybe we can work something out… but at the moment, I’m just not seeing how.” With that, the Prince left.
All five ponies plus a dragoness looked at one another. “Great,” Blitz sighed. “Now what?”
“That is a bitterly good question,” Elusive commented. “What is there to do? Our intervention has left us nowhere other than where we’ve started.”
“It’s like we’ve gone walkin’ around in a full circle.” Applejack rubbed his temples. “Dangit, this is hard!”
“Or maybe it isn’t…” Everypony turned to Berry who suddenly went quiet again, as if in thought. “What if this whole thing is very simple from the start?”
Butterscotch sighed in relief. “Oh good. Berry, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
The party pony nodded. “Of course I do, silly! It’s so simple that even Scootaroll could solve it.”
“I suppose so. So, we--”
“WE HAVE TO MAKE THEM BREAK UP!” Berry declared.
For a tense moment, nopony spoke a word, except for the one that they were all thinking: “WHAT?!”